Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Putin Is One Fucked Up Nut-Case

Putin Accuses U.S. of Trying to Discredit Russian VoteBy CLIFFORD J. LEVYMOSCOW, Nov. 26 — President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday accused the United States of trying to taint the legitimacy of next week’s Russian parliamentary elections by pressing a group of prominent independent election observers to abandon efforts to monitor the campaign.Mr. Putin contended that the monitors, who are deployed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, had halted plans to appraise the parliamentary balloting at the urging of the State Department in Washington.Mr. Putin’s statements in recent weeks have taken on an increasingly nationalistic tone as he has sought to muster support for his party in the elections on Sunday. Speaking to reporters on Monday in St. Petersburg, he once again criticized what he suggested was foreign meddling in Russia’s affairs.“According to information we have, it was again done at the recommendation of the U.S. State Department, and we will take this into account in our interstate relations with this country,” he said. “Their goal is the delegitimization of the elections. But they will not achieve even this goal.”If Russia maintains a robust military, Mr. Putin later added, “we will not allow anyone to poke their snotty nose into our affairs.”American diplomats said they had no role in the cancellation of the election-monitoring mission, and the monitoring group called Mr. Putin’s assertion “nonsense.”On the same day Mr. Putin made his comments, the White House took the unusual step of issuing a statement saying that President Bush was “deeply concerned” about the detention of several opposition leaders in Russia.Over the weekend, the opposition coalition led by Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion, held rallies and marches that were broken up by riot police officers in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities, with hundreds of people taken into custody. Most were later released.Mr. Kasparov himself was arrested in Moscow on Saturday when he tried to deliver a letter to the election authorities assailing the conduct of the election, and was sentenced to five days in jail. His movement, Other Russia, says Mr. Putin is creating a Soviet-style dictatorship in Russia.Mr. Putin has turned the parliamentary elections into a referendum on his leadership, and he has been stepping up his campaigning for his party, United Russia. In a major speech last week, he called his opponents tools of foreign governments, likening them to jackals who hang around foreign embassies to obtain money.At the same time, the Kremlin has used its control over the election laws, government agencies and the news media to ensure that the opposition has little if any chance of gaining a foothold in the next Parliament.Mr. Putin, who has high approval ratings in Russia, is barred by the Constitution from seeking a third consecutive term in the presidential elections in March. But he has said he intends to continue to wield influence after he leaves office.The election-monitoring arm, called the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, announced on Nov. 16 that it was ending the mission, saying that restrictions imposed by the Russian government had made it impossible for it to carry out its work.Russian election officials had first delayed issuing visas to the monitors, not giving them enough time to make their customary observations of campaigning around the country and of news coverage. The officials then abruptly said they would limit the size of the mission to only 70 people, down from 400 in the parliamentary elections in 2003.In contending that the State Department had a role in the cancellation of the mission, Mr. Putin on Monday was highlighting an accusation first made last week by Russian election officials.The chairman of the Central Election Commission in Russia, Vladimir Y. Churov, who was appointed with Mr. Putin’s support, said the director of the election-monitoring office, Christian Strohal of Austria, visited Washington shortly before the decision to withdraw was announced.Mr. Strohal’s aides said the timing of the visit and the decision was coincidental. He met with the American diplomats only because he happened to be in Washington for a meeting of the Organization of American States, they said.Daniel Fried, an assistant secretary of state, said he and R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, had indeed discussed the Russian elections with Mr. Strohal. But Mr. Fried emphasized in an interview that they told Mr. Strohal that they were not trying to affect the process and that it was up to the group to come to its own conclusions about whether the mission could go forward.“They had to make an independent judgment,” Mr. Fried said. “This is not about United States-Russia relations. It is about Russia’s democratic development.”Urdur Gunnarsdottir, a spokeswoman for the monitoring office, also said Mr. Putin was mistaken.“This was a decision that was simply based on the fact that we were not receiving any visas and time had run out,” she said. “The only consultation that took place was within our office with the people that plan these observation missions and carry them through. They have 150 observation missions under their belt. They know by now what needs to be in place to do this.”The monitoring office has observed every election in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Its presence was viewed as an effort by Moscow to ensure that elections complied with international standards.But the Kremlin has in recent years chafed at the group’s reports, contending that they were biased against the government. After the 2004 presidential elections, which Mr. Putin won in a landslide, the group stated that the campaign had not been conducted fairly. In recent months, Russian officials have maintained that the monitoring group needs to be reformed.

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